Our EVITA co-stars are having a prank war and it's the greatest

Friday | Sep. 7, 2018

Every cast at The Rep bonds in different ways.

Some groups are all about touring St. Louis and visiting different attractions together. Others enjoy hangout sessions at our performers' apartments. And still others grow closer by engaging in a wacky, escalating series of pranks.

Such is the case with Michelle Aravena and Sean MacLaughlin, two of the stars of The Rep's season-opening production of Evita. It was pretty clear from day one of rehearsal that Aravena (who plays Eva Perón) and MacLaughlin (Juan Perón) are both total goofballs. Now they've both found the perfect outlet for their mischievous streaks in the form of an all-out prank war.

Admittedly, the contest has been a little one-sided so far. MacLaughlin has taken to ambushing Aravena at her apartment door and filming the results. He's helpfully hashtagged these videos "#scaringaravena."

We're pretty sure that at least 60% of the charm of these videos is MacLaughlin's laugh, which is completely infectious.

In addition to the apartment door jump-scares, MacLaughlin has expanded his repertoire to include freaking out Aravena while she's on her phone in a car.

For her part, Aravena is working on attaining sweet revenge. Her technique just needs a little work. She tried to out-MacLaughlin MacLaughlin by scaring him at his apartment door, but he saw it coming and out-waited her.

We imagine that Aravena is probably more focused on performing one of the most complex parts in the musical theatre canon than out-pranking her co-star, but we are 100% on board for wherever this feud goes next. It's not yet on the level of the great Hamlet-Claudius Twitter battle of 2017, but it could easily get there.